Results tagged “intelligentdesign”

Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, editor of Skeptic magazine, cannot believe this bullshit where people argue that evolution is a shaky theory.

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place.

Town Hall kicked off its Science Lecture Series last night with a talk by particle physicist Lawrence Krauss on Einstein's "biggest blunder."

Seattlest went undercover last night, attending a book launch party for The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design by Dr. Jonathan Wells, senior fellow of the Discovery Institute. The party was held in the Rainier Square Atrium and was open to the public - when a press release announcing the event popped up on our Technorati watchlist for "book signing Seattle" last month we put it immediately on our calendar.

Seattlest lives a neighborhood over from the University of Washington, and in our day to day lives we're kind of ambivalent about that fact, but every now and then we really think about it and we're happy to be in close proximity to such a large and distinguished house of knowledge. They teach stuff there, and more than that, they learn stuff. Science, language, the arts, and the inexorable forward motion of the human condition happening just a few streets over, 24/7!

Act Theatre's latest offering, Miss Witherspoon by Christopher Durang, is the perfect balance to their previous effort, The Pillowman. Both plays feature crucifixion talk and an impending sense of doom, but Witherspoon contains an unlikely amount of hope to counterbalance Pillowman's bleak outlook.

We wanted to attend the Town Hall evolution vs Jesus Freaks debate last night. It was on our calendar and we had all our stuff layed out. Pen, notebook, pillowcase full of doorknobs... That's the wrong attitude, though. You can't beat science into someone's head, it turns out. Someone emailed us with the right attitude today, though, and we'd like to share it with you. Thanks for the email Samantha.

There are some amazing, talented scientific minds at work here in Seattle. Sadly, barring some recent high-profile exceptions, they don't get much media time. Instead, who do the press turn to when pimping a story about "mysterious sonic boom sounds" with a seemingly scientific slant? Local Seattle UFO experts. Thanks San Diego Union Tribune, we'll put that on our mantle right next to all the press about the Discovery Institute.

Roger Downey and his merry band of straight-faced reporter types who just happen to write for an alternative weekly newspaper printed everything you never wanted to know about the Discovery Institute in today's paper. We say "everything you never wanted to know" because, really, who cares about Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute? Isn't that something that Pennsylvania and Arkansas and Conservative Wackolandia have to pay attention to for a few minutes while their courts shoot down the best efforts of their "educators" to trump science with godliness?

This week, federal judge John Jones knocked down the mandate from a Pennsylvania school board that their science teachers present Intelligent Design as a valid alternative to evolution in their classrooms. While he was at it, he smacked the Dover School board for being a bunch of disingenuous liars. Scientists, teachers, and intelligent people from all walks of life, religious or otherwise, rejoiced.

Seattle as a city is currently in danger of becoming the guy at the party with the undone zipper. When we come strutting out of the men's room anxious to talk about technology and the environment and progressive politics all anyone can see is the Discovery Institute hanging out of our pants. Seattlest cringes every time the national media references a particular "Seattle-based think tank" - They won't let us pretend for a minute that we're not ground zero of the Intelligent Design "controversy."

Salon.com is reporting today that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, local philanthropy extrodinaire, has pledged ten million smackaroos to the Discovery Institute since 2000. Wait, you say, the same Discovery Institute tank of thinkers that promotes Intelligent Design? Yes, we tell you, that same Discovery Institute. Say it ain't so, Bill.

When accounts of George Bush's apparent endorsement of "Intelligent Design" hit the media a while back Seattlest saw it as the president's way of boosting the result count for a google search of "bush intelligent". Soon after, though, our jaw slackened and we began staring through a poster on the wall and into the middle distance. Our tools have been getting progressively cruder since then, and ooooOO! OOoo-Oooo Ahhhh!

Seattle was only able to pull down a "World's Most Lesbian-Friendly City" award in a recent "World's Sexiest Cities" poll, but there's been no dry spell of sex-related news in our papers lately. Today, someone at the UW is getting recognition for some of the weirdest sex since, well, last week.

Occasionally, Seattle likes to put its wrong foot forward. This time it's the Discovery Institute, which normally spends its time wonking about land use and transportation issues. Now they're encouraging high school science teachers to "teach the controversy" surrounding evolutionary theory, a controversy that they're busy creating. The Discovery Institute claims that it has no Creationist aims up its sleeve, and is only advocating scientific criticism of a too-venerated theory.